World Bank Joins School Rebuilding Campaign

The World Bank intends to make available to the Iraq Ministry of
Education $40 million for the printing of textbooks and $59 million for
refurbishing schools. It has also designated $700,000 to pay for the
furniture, equipment, technical assistance, and training needed to
manage the project. The money comes from the World Bank’s member
countries, which include the United States.

The organization’s plan is expected to be approved by bank
officials next month, and money should start flowing to Iraq soon
thereafter, according to bank officials who answered questions by
e-mail.

This past school year, two United Nations agencies printed all the
textbooks distributed to children in Iraq. The United Nations
Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, or UNESCO, with a
grant of $10 million from the U.S. Agency for International
Development, printed 8.6 million math and science textbooks. The United
Nations Children’s Fund, or UNICEF, printed 44.5 million
textbooks for all other subjects in the curriculum. They were paid for
with money from the former U.N. "oil for food" program in Iraq.

Those textbooks are newly printed versions of the ones that Iraqi
students used prior to the U.S.-led war in Iraq, minus references to
ousted President Saddam Hussein or his Baath Party, which were edited
out by Iraqi educators. Iraq’s minister of education, Dr.
Ala’din Alwan, said this month that Iraqi educators won’t
rewrite Iraq’s textbooks until after the country’s
curriculum is revised, which he estimates will take two or three
years.

Neither UNESCO or UNICEF will print textbooks for Iraq in the coming
school year, which begins in October, but rather will focus on other
education activities.

UNICEF will use $12.6 million from a grant soon to be announced by
the USAID to run accelerated-learning programs on a large scale for
Iraq’s estimated 50,000 youngsters who haven’t been
attending school. With the new grant, UNICEF also plans to equip 1,000
schools with water and sanitation facilities and latrines.

"Children don’t have safe water to drink. They don’t
have toilets to visit," said Geeta Verma, a UNICEF program officer for
education in Iraq who is currently based outside of Iraq. "Girls tend
to drop out of school more than boys if there are not latrines
around."

UNESCO officials said they were waiting to hear from the Iraq
Education Ministry how they could best support the agency in the coming
school year.

Building Aid

Along with the World Bank, the U.S. government is also poised to
pour money into school repair in Iraq. The United States has proposed
spending $88 million for education construction needs under a
supplemental appropriation for Iraq approved last fall by Congress,
according to Leslye A. Arsht, a senior adviser for the Coalition
Provisional Authority in Iraq.

About two-thirds of Iraq’s 15,000 school buildings need major
repairs, according to Ms. Arsht.

No donors have come forward so far to pay for the construction of
new schools, she added.

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